Shadows & Tall Trees (28 page)

Climbing up and down the storeys, crawling right and left along the passages, he wound up at a peephole he didn’t recognize. Stood up in a stoop, bringing his eye to the hole.

Hard white wall tiles, like all the bathrooms he had seen. The mirrored door to the small medicine cabinet ajar. He realized with a start he was looking at a reflection of the wall he was behind.

A noise stopped. He hadn’t been conscious of the noise until it stopped. Thought it was just something wrong with his ears, which happened sometimes, crawling around in all this dust. A rushing sound.

A new sound, from the right side of the bathroom, beyond his peephole. A shower curtain sliding on its rings.

Blinked.

A naked body passed across the mirror’s reflection.

A woman’s body.

Did not blink.

A woman’s body, from the undersides of her breasts to the curls of her dark pubic hair.

The soft hourglass abdomen of a woman.

Not the stylized nudity of a model in a magazine, but the real beauty of a woman’s body in natural rest, the way a trusted lover would see it. All the more erotic because she didn’t know she was seen. No attempt to suck in her stomach, flat though it was. She had a tiny tattoo on one hip. A blue butterfly.

Through the humid air of the peephole he could smell, only an arm’s length away, the cleanness of her skin, fresh from the shower. That soapy perfume mixed with the lemon scent of wet hair.

Her reflection turned, reached down. The breathtaking narrowness of her back sliding across the mirror, her abdomen reappearing, hand holding a white towel.

Don’s right hand lifted from the side of the peephole. On their own, all five fingers lowered. He was outvoted. Six to one. Below the buttons on his shirt. Below his belt. He remembered the woman he’d seen in the window all those years ago, that glimpse of a future merging with this one as if there’d never been time between them.

He stood away from the hole.

Can’t. Not here. Not where she’d hear, maybe call an exterminator.

Crawled quietly away, swollen, aching. Down, up, right, left, getting frustrated. Where was his release? Carolyn would be home soon. Where was his door?

And finally. Following the trail of his knees in the dust. The dwarf door.

Pushed it open, crawled out. Stood and toed the door closed, breathing heavily.

Reached down. Slapped at the dirt on his pants.

“Don?”

He jerked around.

Carolyn, by the refrigerator, staring at him.

“I thought I heard something. Behind the walls. I was investigating.”

He showed her his dusty palms, a gesture to keep her gaze up, away from the tallness in his pants.

“Filthy,” she agreed.

“Why are you home so early?” Don set the kettle on the stove.

“Early?” She checked her watch, a beautiful bracelet model he’d bought her for the first birthday she’d had with him. How long before they’d have to sell it? Say goodbye to their happy past, one piece at a time. “Don, it’s almost seven. Same time I always come home.”

Yes, because she worked late now, didn’t she. Had to. Just so they could afford even this place.

“Really? It’s that late? Sorry, I’ve been caught up with things.” He went to the fridge, started removing items for their dinner.

“Don? Don. Stop that a minute, will you? Don!”

The kettle was whistling. Neither of them went to it, the shrill boiling point prolonged in being ignored.

“It’s good you’ve been busy,” Carolyn said. “Did you—”

“I’ve got to make dinner.”

Don went to the fridge again but he didn’t open it. Only looked at the blank face of it, his back to his wife.

He heard her sigh. The kettle went quiet.

“Fine,” she said. “I’m going to take a shower.”

Don thought of the woman somewhere below him, towelling herself dry, and said, “Fine.”

Don watched her silhouette through the shower curtain, admired the way it turned, showed him this curve and that. Her hands went to her hair. Her hands played over her own body.

He undressed, wondering at what he was doing even as he did it and deciding that he liked it. This was good. Steam was filling the room and from within it came the gentle sigh of a woman enjoying her shower. Don dropped his clothes at the sound of another and went to the curtain, pulled it aside, and startled the woman he found there.

“Don!”

“I’ve got your back,” he said.

She seemed embarrassed as she hooked the shower nozzle back up.

“I mean, I’ll wash it for you,” he said, stepping into the tub.

“Don...”

He lathered his hands with soap—”don’t we have something lemon?”—and ran the suds down her body. He kissed her. “You remember that time by the pier?” he said, slipping wet hands over her breasts, under them, kissing her neck. “Remember?” he said. Quietly.

She closed her eyes. He turned her around so her back was pressed to his chest and she leaned against him. He reminded her of their walk, their time in the arcade, all the while soaping her and kissing her, and sometimes she would reach behind for him. The shower was hot and good.

“Remember you talked about getting a tattoo?”

Carolyn chuckled softly and turned to him, still pressed close to his body. “I remember. Something lame, like your name in a heart or ‘I love Don’ or something.”

“You should. Get one, I mean.”

She smiled at him. Said, “Silly.”

He caressed her hip with his thumb.

“A butterfly,” he said. He tried to kneel, to kiss where he imagined it, but this tub was cramped and he slipped. Grabbed the goldfish curtain to stay balanced.

“I’m too old now,” she said, taking him in her hands.

The water was losing its heat. Not yet cold, but no longer running as hot as it had been.

“Too old?”

Carolyn tried to raise him back up. He shook her off, did it himself. “All right,” she said, “maybe when we can afford it then.”

The water beat down on them with its chill.

“Don? What’s wrong?”

He said nothing. Stared at her hip.

“Are you crying, Don?”

“Soap,” he said. “I’ve got soap in my eyes.” He tried to step out of the tub but the fucking curtain clung to his skin. He tore at the fish, slipped again getting out from under the spray.

“Don?”

“I need a towel.”

“What about my back?”

But he was already gone, wiping his face dry. Wet footprints marked his dripping exit.

They ate dinner in silence.

The crawlspace was always warm. There was something reassuring about the closeness of the walls. A swaddling of wood frame and plasterboard, hard edges softened by dust. He traversed them easily now, turned his body sideways, crawled, pulled himself up using crossbeam supports or lowered himself through narrow spaces that embraced him all the way down. One couple down here had a young baby and it was worth the effort sometimes to share bedtimes. Don listened as the father he never was read stories to a child he and Carolyn talked about having. Once upon a time.

He sidestepped his way through passages that pressed him front and back like armour plating. He hooked his way down, across, up, with elbow and foot, puffed the air from his mouth to clear the dust as he breathed. Walls were shields as he watched those who worked from home. In one of the ground floor apartments, a man negotiated a business deal on his phone. Don muttered encouragement and advice through the walls and when the deal was done he felt like he’d closed it himself.

Some apartments were difficult to get to, but not impossible. Nothing was beyond his reach within the walls. He was learning where to duck his head, which wooden boards carried risks of splinters, and he knew now how to avoid them to see where couples enjoyed dinners and discussions and television. He watched a film with the young couple on the second floor, though he’d seen it with Carolyn some years ago. He’d never liked the way it ended—no happily ever after here—but tonight the couple offered their own epilogue as the credits rolled. As he watched he wondered if he and Carolyn had done that too, but couldn’t remember.

He moved against wall and floor with the intimacy of familiarity. Penetrated deeper into the building and the lives of others it contained. He held pipes that were warm in his hands and snaked his grip along cables that guided him around and between. In the apartment directly below his own he watched a couple make love.

“Did you hear that?”

The woman, sitting on top of the man, thighs straddling his hips, was no longer moving. Listened, head half turned so that Don could almost see her profile.

Don stayed silent. Didn’t even breathe.

The woman began to move again. Rose, lowered, in his lap.

She leaned back, the man’s arm around her waist.

“You have such great tits,” the man said. Tried to cover them with his hands.

Don agreed. He’s seen them before.

He made his own noise as she did. Hers was a response to the man’s compliment, crude as it was. Don knew the sound because he remembered it. Knew what it built to.

His own sound was loud but lacking the same joy. His was anguish.

“There!” Carolyn said, not with encouragement but with, “I heard it again.” Pulled the top sheet up under her chin.

Don was falling. Or so it felt. So that’s why she was coming home later each night.

Up, left, right, down, sideways through the spaces, hurtling along inside the walls, banging his shoulders, scraping his knees, rushing to get back to their own dwarf door, to learn the truth. To run from it.

Bursting out, stumbling forward across the vinyl floor. Striding to the bedroom, passing through the doorway.

Carolyn in bed, reading. Looking up, startled, at his dramatic entrance.

He raised a finger—wait—while he got his breath. Bent forward, hand to his chest.

Her quiet voice. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine! Fine. When did you get home?”

She put a postcard to the page she had been reading. Shut her book. “About an hour ago.” A wife’s pause. “I was surprised you weren’t home. ”

“I was looking....”

“For a job? At seven o’clock?”

He brushed the dirt from his pants. Caught himself.

“Why are your clothes so dusty, Don?”